by Cat Mann
****
Saturday Ari made plans for us to see the Los Angeles Ballet Company preform Sleeping Beauty at Royce Hall. I had taken dance as a small child. I was not particularly good at it and decided, when we moved to Chicago, to put that hobby on the shelf. Lauren, though, is a dancer, and from what I understand, she is quite talented. She has the perfect body for ballet, long and lean and strong and graceful. Lauren’s room had the same black-and-white, stylized canvas photos that Ari had in his room and they were hanging all about the walls. But hers were of Lauren, the dancer, posed in romantic tutus, warming up on the barre, doing a pirouette. One magnificent photo shows her doing a grand jeté.
So the fact that Lauren threw a royal fit when she heard that Ari was taking me to the ballet was no surprise. She begged him to take her with us, but he refused. She looked shocked when he told her no, as if he had never said that word to her before and actually, that might have been the case. Lauren glared at me the rest of the afternoon and I began to feel uncomfortable. Ari happened to catch one of her evil stares and he snapped at her.
“You weren’t invited, Lauren, so get over it. Don’t take it out on Ava.”
“I’m not taking it out on her! I just don’t see why she gets to go and I don’t!”
Ari dragged his hands down the sides of his face in exasperation.
“Lauren you can be so obtuse sometimes I can’t even stand it. I promise to make it up to you some other day.”
This seemed to appease her quite nicely. Lauren looked up at me from under her long eyelashes and gave me a sheepish grin.
“Sorry, Ava. I hope you have fun.”
“Uh huh,” I said looking at her bemused. I have never seen a family so close knit in all my life. Clearly, whatever Ari had planned to do for Lauren was better than the ballet and she knew it.
Ari and I dressed up and went out to dinner for sushi and then to the show. Ari always looked good, and I had a difficult time keeping my eyes off him. . . that is, until the performance started. I don’t think I turned my head or even blinked one time during the entire show.
